Analysis of Content Popularity in Social Bookmarking Systems - Evolving Application Domains of Data Warehousing and Mining

Database Reference

In-Depth Information

IntroductIon

within a modern Web 2.0 application constitutes

an overly complex phenomenon with interest-

ing dynamics which have not been thoroughly

investigated yet.

Social Bookmarking Systems (SBS) hold a

prominent place among Web 2.0 applications

with respect to content consumption since they

provide a platform where users are provided with

two significant features:

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies and

the widespread use of applications integrating

such technologies have transformed the way

people experience and act in online settings. In

the first days of the Web, people were excited

to browse through and consume online content

(mostly static web pages) that was prepared and

published by website owners or administrators.

Nowadays, digital content consumption - e.g.

online article reading, picture viewing and video

watching - still appears to be one of the main

activities for most internet users‎ 1 . However, the

advent of the Web 2.0 application paradigm has

transformed the established “browsing-based”

online content consumption behavior of users.

This change was possible by means of offering

users a host of rich interactivity features, such

as content sharing, rating as well as online com-

munity building. Thus, users of today's Web 2.0

applications are empowered to share, organize, rate

and retrieve online content. In addition, users are

exposed to the content-related activities of other

users and can even form online relations to each

other. Consequently, online content consumption

•

Submitting and sharing bookmarks (links)

to online resources, e.g. articles, photos or

videos, which they consider interesting.

Indicating their preference or disapproval

•

to bookmarks submitted by other users, by

voting for or against the interesting-ness/

appeal of online resources and by com-

menting on them.

In addition to these two features which are

fundamental for an SBS, there are two other op-

tional groups of features, namely Taxonomic and

Social-Community features. Taxonomic features

pertain to the possibilities offered to users for as-

signing bookmarks to a predefined topic-scheme

or for tagging them with freely chosen keywords.

Table 1. Taxonomic and social/community features of several social bookmarking services

Taxonomic Feats

Social/Community Feats

Type of

Bookmarks

Application name / URL